IF YOU ARE AN AFTER-SCHOOL PROGRAM ADMINISTRATOR AND YOU ARE INTERESTED IN INCORPORATING MY THERAPEUTIC PHOTOGRAPHY WORKSHOP INTO YOUR CURRICULUM PLEASE CLICK ON THE LINK BELOW.
I was in the middle of taking series shots of Lora. After a while she got a little silly and started searching into my lens. "What's going on in there?" I asked. She said -- you have no idea. Inspiration. We copied that "trying to get into your brain" perspective and got shots of the other kids. How many times to we ask our kids what they're thinking about and hear "notttthing". How many times do we tell them how easy they have it-- that these are the best times of their lives. Well take a look at this. Turns out it isn't all fun and games.
This week I introduced my sixth graders to their digital cameras. We started the semester listening to records and shooting film. I was happy to introduce the concept of anticipation to these young kids - who rarely have to wait for anything. They had to work hard for those early shots. They had to meter their light. They had to set their exposure. They had to focus. They had to fire the shutter. They had to advance the shutter. And then they had to wait for the film to be processed. In the end, it was a process that they really took to and we made a decision to start Throwback Thursdays. But today, we went techy and shot with our Nikon Coolpix cameras. It was a simple shoot of each of the kids walking past a bulletin board in the hall. Something they do a dozen times a day. When we got back to the room we started to throw ideas out about our shoot. We talked about what it is like in the halls. Lockers slamming. Yelling. Laughing. Running. Noise. Panic. Rushing. Fear. Hoping you see someone special. Hoping you don't run into someone who is giving you a hard time. THAT group of girls. THAT group of guys. "Wow", I said, "It sounds like a jungle out there." They said, "Yes, It was." We talked about how hard it is to reach out to people- they said that they often try. One of the kids threw out the idea of treating people the right way in the halls. It was from that idea that we came up with our message. It's a simple question, What would you say if you passed yourself in the hall? It introduces the concept of accountability and empathy. I thought about my own treks in the halls of my high school when records spun and yearbook shots were snapped (on film). Not much has changed. The halls are our first real look at the real world. How we walk through them is our decision. How we treat others is our decision. Some get swallowed up, some get beat up, some walk right down the middle in groups and some stay close to the wall. My favorite times were those rare moments when I walked the hall alone. There was a beautiful light that flowed all the way down the middle cast from the door at the end. Symbolic in many ways, for in the end, we all walk out of those doors for good. We hope that our experiences there helped shape the kind of people we become -- KIND being the operative word.
My seventh graders worked for weeks in creating personal time capsules that they will open when they turn 35. In it they wrote letters to their adult selves reminding them what they had dreamed of doing, of what places they had hoped to go, of a lifestyle they hoped to have. The purpose of these letters? To remind, refuel and possibly redirect in case they got off course. In their capsules, they placed photo albums, journals, notes between friends, simple pieces of personal history like movie stubs, wrappers, cd jackets, receipts-anything to define who they were at this particular time in their lives. The most telling was a video produced, directed and edited by the class. Students interviewed each other and asked poignant questions about who they were and what they hoped to become. They then added music and made copies for each capsule.
Please enjoy the latest from my after-school work shops. The video above is titled "Christine" and was written, shot and produced by one of my seventh graders. All I gave her was a plastic bag and time to think. Imagine. The video below was created by Mekayla and is equally sensitive and beautiful.
8th grade is challenging and rewarding. I can feel a real shut down emotionally. A lot going on in the inside but not comfortable sharing. I had my students shoot a series of self portraits and then I had them sit down in front of the computer and vent. The deal was that much of their thoughts would remain private. They only had to post the thoughts they were comfortable with. In the end we had more fun locking them up than anything. They are colorful - expressive little keepsakes of true thought. It gave them a real - glad I got that off my chest - feeling.